Phenomenological Insights into Exotic Interfacial Phenomena in a Novel Pyrochlore Heterostructure

Pyrochlores are known to show exotic phases of matter, such as topological Mott insulators, Axion insulators, Weyl semimetals, and spin liquids, etc. The interface of two pyrochlore materials can feature a strong interplay of topology, magnetism, and geometrical frustrations. In a recent study by Wu et al., the authors report the emergence of nematicity at the interface of a novel pyrochlore heterostructure. Our study theoretically described the observed phenomena, offering qualitative insights that help elucidate the observed experimental anomalies. In this presentation, I will show that the interface of the pyrochlore heterostructure realizes a Kondo interaction between the two parent compounds, and by treating both the two dissimilar phases of matter across the interface and the coupling between them concomitantly, one could capture most of the experimental observations. Our findings spotlight a promising approach for describing new synthetic quantum materials with complex electronic dynamics unattainable in bulk crystals.